]]>http://ifwrites.com/2020/06/05/breonna-taylor/feed/0It Is Deeper Than The Skin We Are Inhttp://ifwrites.com/2020/05/30/it-is-deeper-than-the-skin-we-are-in/
http://ifwrites.com/2020/05/30/it-is-deeper-than-the-skin-we-are-in/#respondSat, 30 May 2020 19:55:37 +0000http://ifwrites.com/?p=533The post It Is Deeper Than The Skin We Are In appeared first on IF.
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]]>http://ifwrites.com/2020/05/30/it-is-deeper-than-the-skin-we-are-in/feed/0Pull the Emergency Brakehttp://ifwrites.com/2020/04/17/pull-the-emergency-brake/
http://ifwrites.com/2020/04/17/pull-the-emergency-brake/#commentsFri, 17 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +0000http://ifwrites.com/?p=417An Account of Donald Trump’s Coronavirus High-Speed Chase For over a month, I’ve felt like someone handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser careening through the streets—with a toddler behind the wheel. Powerless to do little more than yell, scream, occasionally throw myself against the car window, and …

An Account of Donald Trump's Coronavirus High-Speed Chase

For over a month, I’ve felt like someone handcuffed in the back seat of a police cruiser careening through the streets—with a toddler behind the wheel. Powerless to do little more than yell, scream, occasionally throw myself against the car window, and remind myself to breathe, I’ve been praying for a rescue.

The fact is the vehicle every American is locked inside of as COVID-19 rages through our streets is crawling with people in high places who haven’t seemed to be able to press the right pedals and steer straight at the same time. Our president has been fixated on self and the superficial; his Cabinet and staff have been enabling his whims and covering his gaffes; and a Congressional caucus has continued to be largely gambling for partisan profit and fearful of retribution.

Taking America on a Wild Ride

Since occupying the driver’s seat of our country, President Trump has taken millions of us on more unpresidential rides than we care to recount. For three years, we’ve bumped through off-road jaunts, abided lurches, endured screeches, stomached abrupt U-turns, and even survived ignored red lights.

Trump has freely used his presidential license to try to move us wherever and however he wishes. Paying little regard to even some of the most basic rules of the road, far too often he’s shown a level of immaturity that’s dropped jaws both at home and abroad.

Before now, much of what this president has done, at worst, has simply embarrassed or infuriated half of the nation. Before now, we had reasonable means to move past a good deal of his self-serving honking, and even to escape the dangers of his barreling in the wrong direction on one-way streets. We could retreat to safer avenues of distraction. We could go about our daily routines and, for the most part, ignore insult and avoid injury.

Driving Erratically During Crisis

Now . . . the novel coronavirus (officially named SARS-CoV-2) has changed everything. Today, April 17, there are nearly 700,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S., and the virus has killed over 36,000 Americans. Yet the person who should be steering us with prudence and selflessness through this catastrophic journey has habitually taken flights of fancy during coronavirus-related interviews and daily press briefings (which haven’t been brief and often have contained no pressing presidential information).

During these “briefings,” it’s been painful to watch the president of the United States robotically read scripted platitudes, apparently thinking that splashing them with anemic ad-libs and hyperbole makes him sound more natural or convincing.

Trump’s used these appearances to heap praises on himself and his administration, all while jammed into a bumper-car approach to drive away a pandemic, when we’ve needed an armored vehicle assault. Further, his highly unprofessional behavior has marred almost every briefing and his written public statements: He’s sparred with reporters who’ve asked legitimate questions. He’s even tweeted about his briefings’ TV ratingsand . . . about not footingPrince Harry and Meghan Markle’s security bill.

Shifting Downward

Having peddled unscientific declarations as truth and pressed experts to make unfounded statements—to suit his political purposes—on Tuesday, March 31, Trump finally seemed to shift from his public economy-first focus. In his press briefing, he gave scientific data rightful front-seat status (after two months of stuffing it under a cushion of disregard). He allowed White House Coronavirus Task Force scientists to detail sobering projections for American COVID-19 deaths.

Trump’s compulsion to interject comments diametrically opposed to fact notwithstanding, Task Force experts Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci were able to present data-driven snapshots of what the nation might expect in coming weeks and months. They were able to implore the country to follow all directives issued to try to save as many lives as possible. And they were able to field journalists’ questions.

Driving Distractions . . . Again

Still, during that Tuesday’s briefing, in the midst of what’s been termed Trump’s most somber health crisis behavior, the president managed to yield to the road rage he’s infamous for displaying. Again . . . he plowed into members of the media and inexplicably blared his siren at the imagined infractions of perceived political enemies.

At the very next day’s briefing, Trump’s distracted driving zigzagged us all again. Instead of strengthening his grip on the crisis leadership wheel, in light of what the nation’s slogging through and where it’s headed, he stretched to redirect America’s focus to yet another of his theatrically staged presentations.

As if the alarming data highlighted the day before were little more than speed bumps, Trump did not lead with information directly addressing coronavirus health concerns. Flanked by an array of military leaders, he led by announcing “enhanced counternarcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere.” He spent prime briefing time putting on a choreographed display designed to convince the public that ramping up the drug cartels fight is as important as ensuring that hospitals have enough ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE). It all felt like an April Fools’ Day joke.

Green-lighting an Amateur

Then on Thursday, April 2, Trump trotted out son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner, shockingly revealing him as the person who’s been sliding behind the wheel to steer the administration’s coronavirus response. Kushner related that he’s been quite involved in delivering hospital resources, including much-needed PPE, essentially wherever his father-in-law and he see fit. He even repeatedly revved his ill-equipped engine when questioned about reported difficulties a number of states have had securing critical equipment and supplies from the national stockpile.

That day Kushner—who has no crisis management, logistics, or public health credentials—created more concern than he allayed. The extent to which he’s wielding influence is beyond unsettling: Kushner is chairing an unofficial task force comprising representatives from a variety of industries. And he not only handpicked its members, but also, until recently, housed it at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Peddling Without a License

What’s even worse than having someone masquerading as a legitimate crisis manager during a pandemic is having a U.S. president with no medical training repeatedly dispensing advice as if he were a physician. By touting the efficacy of treatments not yet proven as valid COVID-19 therapies, Trump keeps crossing the solid dividing line to go around the steady pacing of White House Coronavirus Task Force physicians, including the head of the Food and Drug Administration. As much as Trump wants a medicinal quick fix for this crisis, experts say what he’s pushing simply isn’t it. And, not administered properly, the primary drug he keeps spotlighting could even harm COVID-19 patients.

Seven of Trump’s Most Nauseating Coronavirus Crisis Stunts . . .

(1) He refuses to accept any responsibility for his woeful crisis preparedness and response. He insists he “inherited a mess” from previous administrations and wrongly says nobody could’ve seen this coming. He also blames the governors of embattled states, vilifies the World Health Organization, and attacks hospital administrators.

(2) He urged reporters and New York officials to investigate the “apparent” theft of PPE (implicating hospital staff), because some hospitals’ reported usage has increased almost thirtyfold, burning through up to 300,000 pieces of protective gear within a specified period (which . . . um . . . might be expected in frontlinepandemic patient care).

(3) In the middle of announcing a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation that all Americans wear a cloth face covering when away from their homes, Trump rammed the guidance into a wall. He said he has no plans to don a mask himself because it wouldn’t look good. And he stressed that complying with the directive is voluntary.

(4) He flatly refutes the logic in having a national coronavirus testing strategy, ignoring state and local leaders’ cries for testing assistance. Referencing the data on total tests performed in the U.S., he erroneously claims that, per capita, America leads all nations. Actually, the country is well behindseveral developed nations in coronavirus testing. And not until two days ago, April 15, did the total reportedly rise to a mereone percent of the entire population.

(5) Amid coronavirus briefings, that America has tuned in to for expert updates, Trump has had jokes . . . about the “Deep State” Department, being involved with fashion models, taking the uncomfortable standard coronavirus test, distancing himself from a slightly ailing doctor on the dais (as she was informing the nation).

(6) He suggested that his signature be added to millions of economic stimulus checks, reportedly delaying their dissemination, because the check template had to be recoded. (Trump’s position does not qualify him to legally sign these disbursements, so his name will be placed in the “memo” section.)

(7) During a briefing about his push to reopen the nation, he again declared himself as having “total” and “absolute” authority to do whatever he wishes. This time he wrongly asserted that he has the power to force states to lift restrictions they put in place to fight the coronavirus’ spread.

All while across the nation . . . overwhelmed hospital staffs, emergency responders, and grocery personnel were endangering their lives and those of their loved ones . . . women were laboring and giving birth with slim or no family support . . . patients were suffering and dying in isolation . . . refrigerator trucks were holding morgue and mortuary overflow . . . and mass graves were housing unclaimed bodies.

Accelerating Toward a Risky Course

Trump’s rush to reopen the country for the sake of the economy (originally targeting Easter and then May 1) shows he doesn’t grasp the magnitude of the response needed to mitigate the spread of this virus.

Yes, he’s acknowledged that the COVID-19 hospitalization rate in some hot spots is gradually declining. And, when questioned, he acknowledged that African Americans are being disproportionately affected by COVID-19, accounting for an alarming number of deaths.

But he claimed not to know why—despite the enduring disadvantages heaped on blacks by systemic racism. He seemed ignorant of three critical barriers impeding many African Americans’ ability to defend against the coronavirus: limited access to health care, physical distancing challenges (due to dense living and transportation conditions), and little to no opportunity to telework. All meaning a rushed wave of reopening puts generations within families at immense risk.

Certainly, as an unprecedented number of Americans are turning to food banks and struggling to pay their bills, we all want to see the nation recover as quickly as possible economically. And most of us understand that aggressively attacking this health threat is the key to this happening. Doing everything possible to significantly slow the spread of the virus and to determine who’s already recovered from it (perhaps indicating immunity) is critical to knowing who might safely reenter the workplace.

Disturbingly, though, Trump is prepared to race on and ignore pavement markings, flashing red lights, clanging bells, and crossing gates. Today he posted tweets actually encouraging protesters (many openly armed and violating the very congregating and social distancing measures the Coronavirus Task Force reiterated the day before). This foolish behavior further shows he doesn’t care that this coronavirus will not respond to rhetoric or bullying, abides by no calendar but its own, and travels along on its own course, at its own pace.

Pleading for Intervention

As this president drives on, squinting through the fog of a pandemic, overwhelmingly reliant on his own vision, easily turned aside by whims and grudges . . . human nature juggles my screams with my not-so-quiet pleas:

Somebody, please, get this president to see that denying accountability—that comes with being a wartime president (which he dubbed himself weeks ago)—is inconsistent with leading the fight against this coronavirus . . .

Somebody, please, get him to see that riffing about witch hunts, reelection conspiracies, and others’ character and capacity is inconsistent with the image of commander in chief that he apparently holds so dear . . .

Even as I plead, the glaring light of Donald Trump’s unfitness washes out my hopes that—barring a miracle—he can develop the capacity to find humility, to cultivate empathy, to adhere to wise counsel, to value right instruction, to silence the clamor of distraction . . . to toil for the greater good.

He keeps saying he sees the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” . . . I’m just afraid he doesn’t know it’s because he’s driving in the dark—about to meet a bullet train.

]]>http://ifwrites.com/2020/04/17/pull-the-emergency-brake/feed/10The Mysterious Life of Henrietta Bakerhttp://ifwrites.com/2019/09/30/the-mysterious-life-of-henrietta-baker/
http://ifwrites.com/2019/09/30/the-mysterious-life-of-henrietta-baker/#commentsMon, 30 Sep 2019 23:30:20 +0000http://ifwrites.com/?p=171A GREAT-GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER’S MUSING When genetic technology tells you you’re not who you’ve always been told you are, somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do. No, my daddy is my father and my mama is my mother. Like most genealogical quandaries, mine goes much deeper than that. It, like many African-American familial …

A GREAT-GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER’S MUSING

When genetic technology tells you you’re not who you’ve always been told you are, somebody’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.

No, my daddy is my father and my mama is my mother. Like most genealogical quandaries, mine goes much deeper than that. It, like many African-American familial stories, is haunted by slavery’s ravages, “Dark Continent” stigma, and Native American exoticism.

To say a brother’s DNA test filled me with disappointment, though, wouldn’t be accurate. I marveled at how a mouthful of saliva could transport my siblings and me percentage by percentage to where our African ancestors were born:

Those ethnicity estimates filled the void where generations of my family had teetered. We’d stood on the edge of a pit with jagged edges and slick walls, and had no way to get to what could tell us who we were and where we were from.

Ticking off the names of African regions accounting for 82% of our ethnic makeup was exhilarating. Being able to stick virtual pins into specific points on the continent that had birthed most of our physical features and many of our cultural practices felt so good.

Each area settled into its place on the map of our lives. And then, amid the celebration of self-discovery, I slid into mourning. My mind skimmed atrocities that enslaved ancestors had endured—calling forth conditions that stripped, matted, knotted, and plaited together roots from more than EIGHT West African nations.

That, of course, wrapped a winding sheet around the revelation of just where my family’s white blood came from—EUROPE [16%] – Great Britain (10%) and Trace Regions (6%). I was in no mood to imagine any mitigating factor that could account for how that element of my admixture had been introduced. I knew the chances of it having come about under any circumstance beyond some gradient of force were nonexistent. (In an NPR piece with interviewer Terry Gross, historian and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., addresses this fact in one of the best ways I’ve ever heard.)

While American history had prepared me to acknowledge double-digit white extraction, I was surprised to see the two trace regions representing my final 2%: Asia and West Asia. And that’s when the math broadsided me. According to my family’s oral history and my mother’s personal encounters, the DNA of a very special someone was missing.

A DNA Mystery

There was no mention of my brother having any Native American blood. The company’s ethnicity estimates did not equate “Native American” with “Asia and West Asia”—despite a prevailing theory that ancestral Native Americans migrated from the Siberian Highlands.

So, there was no reflection of Henrietta Baker, our maternal great-great-grandmother—a “‘full-blooded Indian’ raised by white people,” my mother and her mother always said. Here’s essentially how the story surrounding Henrietta’s “adoption,” as disturbing as it is intriguing, has nested in our family tree:

A day or so after some white folk raided an Indian village, somebody found a baby tucked away in a tepee—all alone. They took her into town and gave her to a white couple, who raised her as “Henrietta Baker.”

My mother laid eyes on her great-grandmother Henrietta only a couple of times. As young children, she and her sister gawked at the “strange-looking woman” occupying a bedroom in their grandma Mary Mann George’s house.

We’d sneak and stare at her. And wonder why Grandma had an old white woman in her house. She had really long, silky, white hair. Later they said she was an Indian, raised by white folk. And she was married to Grandma’s daddy, Riley Mann, who was half black and half white.

A story like that anchoring someone to your roots arouses curiosity—especially when a DNA report seems to say it ain’t so.

But when I first saw my brother’s ethnicity estimates, Grandma Henrietta’s omission was little more than eyebrow-raising: a thorn that pricked only when I slowed down long enough to think about it. After all, no one in my family had any obsession with having Native American blood. I simply wondered how an entire person’s genome as my family knew it could show up nowhere.

I gave little consideration to the possibility that the DNA service’s actual analysis of the reported sample was wrong. So, instead of holding onto a cry of “SCIENCE FOUL,” I settled into a more comfortable position: Somehow my brother had gotten the wrong report—of someone else’s test. That had to be it, because nothing in the oral history on my mother’s mother’s mother’s side accounted for what we didn’t see. He needed a do-over, or a refund.

Another Strikeout

A year or so later, when a second brother’s DNA results came back practically identical to the first . . . I couldn’t believe my great-great-grandmother was still unlocatable in the genetic profile. The situation seemed almost laughable. Forget “almost” . . . I did laugh—the kind of nervous laughter that crawls out of your gut when you’re smacked by something that just can’t be true.

“I knew these companies couldn’t get it right!” I exclaimed. I so wanted to pin the omission on flat-out scientific error but remembered reading that direct-to-consumer DNA services are said to be 99.9% accurate. (I took that to include avoiding online results mix-ups, too. Besides, how likely was it that both brothers had gotten “someone else’s” results?) Onward, I went . . .

The transatlantic slave trade’s coring of West Africa made the patchwork of African regions feel like the cloak we’d expected. And the white data . . . the shoes forced on us that fit just as well as any others at the back of our American closet. So, with estimates in hand, we wore ourselves well, as we’d always done: heads high, backs straight, shoulders tall.

Even with Henrietta Baker nowhere in sight, we carried her with us because our mother and her mother knew her and had been told who she was.

The Plot Twists

Nearly a year later, my brothers’ numbers changed remarkably. The DNA service had updated its ethnicity estimating process and added global regions—reflecting new data and improved analysis methods, it said.

So, my brothers (and I) had undergone quite the reconstitution: most notably from being almost one-third Nigerian to having only a trace amount of that region’s DNA; being of Southern Bantu Peoples stock (which exists across a broad stretch of Africa); and seeing a more expansive white representation, spanning from England to Russia.

I set the dueling profiles aside for a time, allowing them to gather dust like cast-off tangles of yarn. I didn’t quite know what I should make of what they’d sorted out. A well-regarded company had sent markedly divergent sketches—with a known ancestor missing from every rendering.

Then one day a photo of my grandmother Leola George Copeland Lundy (one of Henrietta’s five grandchildren) popped up on my computer screen. Her sweet smile really got me. Forget 99.9% accuracy and database refinement.I knew I had to try to needle my way through Henrietta Baker’s mystery.

Exactly what was the deal? Why was someone my grandmother had touched and cared forabsent from my brothers’ DNA samples? An ancestor whose face my mother knew. Someone whose eyes I even might’ve seen in her daughter’s, the only time I spent part of a summer at my great-grandmother’s. I wondered if I’d ever know.

A Scholar's Story

Months later, I watched an episode of the PBS rave Finding Your Roots. In it, Professor Gates lightheartedly shares how he almost got “kicked out” of his family for revealing (in a segment of the show African American Lives) that there was only a trace amount of Native American ancestry in its bloodline. He tells how some of his relatives rather heatedly recalled certain distinctively “Indian” features that various family members have had.

The high cheekbones and straight hair texture a number of the professor’s relatives have long pointed to as Native American expressions, Gates says, are due to a “surprisingly high amount” of white blood in his family’s veins (50.5%). African DNA, he notes, accounts for a little over 48%—leaving Native American DNA to be less than 1%. (Professor Gates also relates the story as part of “High Cheekbones & Straight Black Hair?”—an article posted on The Root.)

Another fact the genealogy scholar brings up in the piece is the reality of blacks and indigenous peoples’ infrequent contact. He stresses that there just wasn’t that much interaction between the two groups overall for there to be as much Native American blood in African-American families as legend proclaims.

Black and Native American proximity, though, doesn’t underpin Henrietta Baker’s ethnic story as I know it. How my “full-blooded Indian” great-great-grandmother came to be a pillar of my family followed a completely different route: She was said to have been found in a Native American community and then raised in a white family in Georgia.

My Larger Personal Story

My mother, Eloise Copeland Formey, was a huge genealogy fan. She spent many hours researching her lineage, mapping whatever she could. Had she not become gravely ill just over a month after her favorite ancestry site began offering DNA testing, I have no doubt she would’ve been among its first customers.

Using what was available to her, many a day she’d plant her foot at the base of a mountain of information, strap in, and explore as much as she could. One of her greatest hopes was discovering something more solid about her great-grandma Henrietta. A something that always eluded her.

So, my siblings and I are perfectly satisfied to say we have no Native American ancestry—if we don’t. But if it’s there, even in the minutest amount (in the form of our mother’s great-grandmother’s blood), we should be able to see it among the long list of ethnicities in our family members’ DNA test reports. Or should we?

Competing Messages

I saw where two companies I checked out underscore the fact that siblings might inherit DNA differently. (HINT HINT . . . “The whole lot o’ ya should be tested.”) Of course, it’s not surprising that a DNA business would suggest that.

Another point they make is that with each passing generation, the chance of a given ancestor’s DNA being lost entirely (or untraceable in testing) increases. And, you guessed it, if what you’re looking for doesn’t show up in your report . . . they recommend testing a parent or grandparent, if possible. (WINK WINK . . .)

While Gates and experts mentioned in the “High Cheekbones” article (a geneticist from yet another DNA testing service and a population biology professor) acknowledge the roulette wheel of inheritance, they say losing ancestral DNA altogether (dating back five generations even) isn’t likely.

According to the population scientist, “the percent probability of an ancestor not passing on any DNA to you is basically zero back 180 years (assuming each generation is 30 years), and is only about 5 percent back 210 years or seven generations ago, to 1814.”

Besides these competing messages, there’s this to consider: Many indigenous tribes refuse to submit to sampling so that their DNA can be included in test banks. Among their concerns is a long history of trust abuse.

In a National Human Genome Research Institute article (“DNA Tests Stand on Shaky Ground to Define Native American Identity”), science writer Teresa L. Carey discusses this mistrust. She also presents two bioethics experts’ concerns about blind reliance on direct-to-consumer DNA tests that include “Native American heritage in their algorithm, despite limited data.”

What I Know For Sure

And that a stampede of speculation about Henrietta’s origins can send minds dashing off and camping in myriad directions, like this short list:

Henrietta Baker . . .

Was left behind around 1870, during a raid on indigenous people who’d managed to survive at least a generation after the official “Indian Removal” in Southeast Georgia in 1840. (Similar to Seminole resistors who escaped to the swamps of Florida and engaged in guerilla warfare against the U.S. government until the 1840s?)

2. Was discovered and taken to be cared for by a white family, who “adopted” her and revealed her Native American ethnicity to her.

3. Could’ve been the biological child of a white woman, and, at birth, bore features strikingly different in structure and coloring from both mother and father because the man of the house was “not the father,” but accepted the child and, as a social shield for the entire family, claimed the baby the wife delivered hadn’t survived and that a miracle replacement had appeared on their doorstep, wrapped in a Native American “blanket.”

4. Could’ve been the biological child of two white parents, and, at birth, had skin tinged with African blood because the mother or father (or both) had been passing for white, and as a social shield for the entire family, the couple claimed they’d lost their baby but a miracle brought them a “poor little abandoned Indian.”

5. Could’ve adopted the “Indian” label herself, in rejection of white blood she felt, or knew, was there by means she never wanted to think or speak of.

As a light-skinned, sixty-something African-American man recently shared with me he’d routinely done as a teen.

A tendency Gates says wasn’t uncommon. He cites anthropologist Nina Jablonski’s explanation: “Everyone wants to feel good about their ancestors. Having a Native American in one’s background is ennobling and elevating, but having physical traits associated with European subjugation is not.”

Final Words . . .

I simply am who I am:

A proud descendant of Africans (whose names I will never know).

The great-great-granddaughter of an old “white-looking” woman with long, silky, white hair—a mysterious soul whose name I do know. Whose eyes my mother saw. Whose hands my grandmother held. Whose ethnic truth was worthy of official documentation when it would’ve mattered to her most.

Was she Creek (Muscogee) or Cherokee? Native American at all? Conveniently packaged to accommodate somebody else’s shame? Or, embracing what served her best—at a time when light skin, high cheekbones, and straight hair would speak for her before she could say a word.

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http://ifwrites.com/2019/08/24/just-one/#respondSat, 24 Aug 2019 17:04:47 +0000http://ifwrites.com/?p=154A Reflection at 60* Sixty years ago yesterday just one woman made just one decision that imprinted far more than just one person—not only has it informed my path my entire life, but also it’s deeply affected many in my extended family. For apparently just one reason (incompetence or racism: …

A Reflection at 60*

Sixty years ago yesterday just one woman made just one decision that imprinted far more than just one person—not only has it informed my path my entire life, but also it’s deeply affected many in my extended family. For apparently just one reason (incompetence or racism: two impostors known to don the same mask in certain settings, especially in 1958), the single nurse assigned to render aid to the two women in “the colored ward”—where my mother (clearly near delivery transition) was laboring to have me—refused to place just one call to the just-one obstetrician of the small Southern town my parents’ families had called home for—not just one—but several generations.

Though my father’s persistent sister had reminded the nurse far more than just one time that my mother had borne more than just one child (I was her fourth—bound to arrive quickly like my brothers), the nurse resisted just one thing—doing. her. job. responsibly.

In the absence of the sole nurse’s aid on duty (who’d been scuttling between the bedsides of the only two patients in the ward) and with my aunt at the nurse’s station still insisting the doctor be called to the hospital, alone my mother finally succumbed to the urge to bear down and release me. And our just One God delivered me.

With just one, big, quiet push, I entered the world squalling—crisis seemingly averted—but for just one issue: aspiration. With my mother weakened by the ordeal and the vestiges of a serious illness, no one was there to clear my airway; my unattended first cries forced more than life’s breath down into my lungs, setting off a chain reaction of respiratory distress that altered more than just one day. It has challenged every breath of my life—some far more than others.

Maybe because the capacity to communicate is so singularly precious to me, I love just one thing almost indescribably: words. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the sound of practically anybody’s words. And though not particularly skilled at enunciation at the age of three-and-a-half, I installed myself then to fulfill just one purpose—to reign as my family’s resident verbal cheerleader-coach. And I’ve never looked back.

So, on each December 9, rather than wasting precious energy cursing one of the worst things that just one woman could have done to my mother and me on just one day of our lives, I choose to refresh my sense of forgiveness in more than just one area of my life and celebrate the creative power that God models for us all through the gift of words.

]]>http://ifwrites.com/2019/08/24/just-one/feed/0MAKE ME READhttp://ifwrites.com/2019/08/13/make-me-read/
http://ifwrites.com/2019/08/13/make-me-read/#commentsTue, 13 Aug 2019 02:33:33 +0000http://ifwrites.com/?p=68Then, Now, and Always I’ve been smitten with words since the age of three when I’d repeatedly beg my mother to “MAKE ME READ.” Yes, even in early 1960s Baxley, Georgia, years before ever setting foot in a classroom, I demanded impossible transformation: to be instantly gifted with the power …

I’ve been smitten with words since the age of three when I’d repeatedly beg my mother to “MAKE ME READ.” Yes, even in early 1960s Baxley, Georgia, years before ever setting foot in a classroom, I demanded impossible transformation: to be instantly gifted with the power to solve one of a preschooler’s greatest mysteries.

Certainly, as a first-grader I never could’ve understood how finally taming the “magical squiggles” on the pages of Alice and Jerry would affect my life. Hooked by the sound of reading aloud, I simply immersed myself in all things “word”—something I do even now. Having been fathered (in the fullest sense of the word) by the first African-American superintendent of the Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, how could I, or my six siblings, really do otherwise?

Both of my parents implanted within us the best that each had to offer. My father, a moving orator, left no doubt about what well-crafted communication can do; and my mother’s greatest imprints were her jaw-dropping creativity and unshakable discipline as a master homemaker. So, as a writer, every piece I produce breathes their passion, precision, and promise.

Surely, my formal/“outside” education added another dimension of polish to my writing; but growing up in Baxley, Woodbine, and Savannah, Georgia, in a house filled with strong faith, great expectations, and high hopes jump-started my pursuits and keeps me going today.

At the recent ceremony celebrating the naming of an early learning center after my father, I relished warm memories of my first teachers, Henderson Edward Formey, Jr., and Eloise LaVaughn Copeland Formey. I marveled at how they seemed to effortlessly stoke and contain the flames of curiosity and purpose they lit within my brothers, my sisters, and me.

I smiled at how they’d read to me, insisting they could never “make” me do the thing I’d wanted most, while making sure I indeed could learn to “do it all by myself.”

I thought about the pre-K and kindergarten students at Formey ELC and how a school system had set apart a very special space just for them to learn to read . . . English, Mandarin, music, and more.

I saw my parents smile at how sowing into the lives of seven had multiplied so greatly beyond their physical span on earth.

I thanked them for making me . . . to read, to write, to teach, to soar . . .

]]>http://ifwrites.com/2019/08/13/make-me-read/feed/2TOUCHED BY TONIhttp://ifwrites.com/2019/08/08/touched-by-toni/
http://ifwrites.com/2019/08/08/touched-by-toni/#commentsThu, 08 Aug 2019 00:38:46 +0000http://ifwrites.com/?p=7How I Discovered, “Discovered,” & “Was Discovered” by Toni Morrison INSPIRATION: the gift of breathing in that which sustains. That is what Toni Morrison has been for me since 1978. Apart from my mother and grandmothers, Toni Morrison stands as the woman who shaped my life in the profoundest of …

INSPIRATION: the gift of breathing in that which sustains. That is what Toni Morrison has been for me since 1978. Apart from my mother and grandmothers, Toni Morrison stands as the woman who shaped my life in the profoundest of ways.

Her words first gave me air in what could have been a suffocating environment: underground, deep in the stacks of Firestone Library (Princeton University’s hallowed repository of a great many things worth researching in the Seventies). Exploring—no, gasping—for something to stimulate my weary tentacles of scholarship, I was determined to find just the right breath. I searched for something that would feed my spirit as I tackled my biggest academic assignment to that date: my junior independent study project.

As an undergraduate English (American Studies) major, I was both excited and terrified. Though excited to finally have the opportunity to inspect and dissect whatever interested me, I was terrified of being saddled with the usual, the expected. Knowing I didn’t want to deconstruct more “classic”/mainstream American literature, I turned to what spoke to me as a black student and writer—the canon of black fiction, that I had largely independently studied for most of my life. But, as I flipped through the card catalog, I didn’t feel led to stop at Baldwin, Ellison, Hansberry, Hughes, or Hurston. I kept flipping, until I found my breath, figuratively and literally.

“Morrison, Toni,” the cards read. The content sketches of her novels The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), and Song of Solomon (1977) hooked me immediately. That day I read as much as I could about the literary breeze that promised to make the impending months of intensive study not only livable but refreshing.

In the next couple of weeks, I inhaled Toni Morrison’s books, as if most of my other studies mattered little. After persuading my independent study advisor to allow me to devote my project to Ms. Morrison’s works, I set about the task as if it were light and love and air. Because, for me, it was: I saw things, felt things, and breathed things I’d never experienced before. And that began a decades-long quest to summit the spirit of Toni Morrison.

Thirty years after my life-altering Morrison discovery, I attended the Fifth Biennial Conference of the Toni Morrison Society, in Charleston, South Carolina. One of the organization’s principals arranged for me to be in a small group gifted with a private introduction to and photo opportunity with Professor Morrison. I took my first moments in my hero’s presence to tell her she’d arrived at Princeton (as a professor) about ten years too late, according to my academic clock. (I’d graduated in 1980 and she’d arrived in 1989.) Then, breathing in the rare air of being so close to my writing idol, I must have become lightheaded, because I went on to explain to The Literary Behemoth herself that she had me to thank for Princeton’s first finding out about her. I said, “I introduced your work to the English Department.” Good-humoredly, her eyes seemed to say, “I have to hear this one.” So, I obliged. I recounted how, in 1978, I’d burst into my independent study advisor’s office and proclaimed that I’d be doing my project on the works of Toni Morrison. I explained to her that he’d quickly let me know just how the system worked: the student requested and the advisor approved or refused.

I shared with Professor Morrison that my beloved advisor had politely said he had no idea who she was. Then I told her, “Before he could go on, I kicked into full PR mode: ‘You haven’t heard of her?! But she received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction last year and was just recognized at the White House just a few weeks ago.’” (I couldn’t remember exactly when she’d been honored at Pennsylvania Avenue, but “a few weeks ago” had worked for me.)

I shared with Ms. Morrison that after that bit of advocacy, my advisor said he’d be willing to learn more about her if I’d bring in her books so he could determine if they merited scholarly consideration. At that, Toni Morrison chuckled and flashed her trademark smile, “I’m not surprised (that the Princeton English Department hadn’t been abuzz about her, her work, or her noteworthy achievement); it’s so typical.” I moved along, charged by the current of electricity one feels after making positive contact with greatness.

That afternoon I arranged for Professor Morrison’s conference escort to present her with an acrostic poem I’d dared to create a few days before the event . . . a piece ABOUT . . . HER. No words can even hint at the level of trepidation I felt, when writing the piece for The Best Writer on the Planet AND after actually giving it to someone to deliver to her! The moment the poem left my hands, I quaked. So what if I’d spent days writing it. So what if it was beautifully matted and framed. This was NOBEL. LAUREATE. TONI. MORRISON. I was crazy.

Hours (that seemed like EONS) later the escort found me and said, “That poem you gave Professor Morrison must really be something.” She’d given it to her privately at her hotel just before setting out for the conference gala. The escort said, “Though we needed to leave, she stood there and took her time and read it. Several times, it seemed. Then she refused to leave it in the room. And stared at it in the car throughout the ride to the venue.”

I needed AIR. “Oh, my God,” I thought. The escort read terror in my eyes. “No, she looked like she really liked it,” she tried to settle me.

I sat smiling through the evening’s events. Happy that the single greatest influence on my writing life had seemed to like what I’d written. But, of course, I knew I’d always wonder what she’d really thought about the acrostic I’d painstakingly wrought to reflect her genius and the recurrent themes that characterize her body of work.

So, through divine intervention, I believe, I got the opportunity to find out. I looked up and spotted Professor Morrison walking across the room . . . alone. And, yes, despite heart palpitations and shaky knees, I wove my way through the space and stopped TONI MORRISON. In a fairly crowded room, I managed to suspend us both in a bubble of time, by gushing, “I’m the one who wrote the acrostic you received earlier tonight.” The smile that curled her lip and lit her eyes instantly connected us.

She exclaimed, “Oh, YOU’RE THE ONE who did the acrostic?! Those things are usually so forced, but not yours, and it has everything in it. It’s really well done. THANK YOU.” She rested a hand on mine as a brief underscore.

That “private” moment Professor Morrison granted me in the middle of a bustling conference room was OXYGEN. I’d directly shown my appreciation for the woman whose words had inspired me for 30 years and she had graciously received it. And, secondarily, the Greatest of All Time had validated the quality of my work.

Certainly, that was more than enough satisfaction for me. I was still awash in the afterglow of that encounter the next morning (the final of the conference) when the Society principals hosting Professor Morrison greeted me. Then, shockingly, one hailed me as “the only person we know of who has ever rendered TONI MORRISON speechless!” He went on to explain that the night before Ms. Morrison had shown them the piece I’d written and had admiringly referred to and gone over it a few times with them.

So, for a season, I . . . was known as . . . “the writer who rendered TONI MORRISON speechless.”

Over the years, I’ve held dear the highlights of that conference: seeing Toni Morrison sit in on lectures about her work and modernism, taking a boat with Toni Morrison and a host of others to land at Sullivan’s Island to commemorate the first encounters with this land that enslaved ancestors of many African Americans experienced, and witnessing the placement of the Society’s first “bench by the road” as the simplest of interactive memorials to the enslaved.

But bearing the stamp of an icon’s validation tops them all.

Ever touched by Toni . . .

IF

(Yep . . . this is it, featuring every major theme of Toni Morrison’s body of work .)